File:141R.840.jpg

English: SNCF Class 141R 2-8-2 No.141R.840 (Baldwin 72961 of 1947) in black livery with a yellow stripe pokes its head out of the Longueville Depot at the AJECTA Festival, 8 May 2023. It has boxpok driving wheels on one axle, spoked wheels on the rest and is oil fired.

The 141R's were built in the USA & Canada to get the French Railway system back on its feet after WWII when many French locos were out of service because of their complexity and high maintenance needs. Because of the urgency to get large numbers of locos to France, the 141R’s were based on an existing design – the Green Bay and Western Railroad’s version of the USRA Light Mikado designed in WWI. The first batch were all coal burners and had spoked wheels, bar frames and a plain exhaust but succeeding batches featured a Kylchap single exhaust, boxpok drivers on one, then all axles (combined with roller bearings), and finally cast steel beds which were immensely strong. Also oil firing featured on the later batches. 1,340 were built although 17 were lost at sea in a storm whilst being delivered.

Although crude and inefficient by French standards (Chapelon increased their efficiency by 20% with only minor modifications before they entered service), their ability to keep on going with minimum maintenance and under the roughest of conditions over appalling track with very poor quality coal (a problem avoided with oil) combined with driving methods that did not require high driving (and firing) skills that French engines normally required endeared them to French crews - surprisingly! Tellingly, they were amongst the last French steam engines in service. Czech 4-8-2s built in the 1950s were based on these and carried a very similar boiler.